Chiaroscuro
by ignitesthestars
Summary: Chiaroscuro; the use of strong contrasts between light and dark. Fifty sentences on the relationship between Alina and the Darkling.


**#01 - Walking**

He's supposed to be the most powerful Grisha in the world, and yet he still can't stop one mousy little girl from walking away from him (again, and again).

**#02 - Waltz**

Alina stiffens when he takes her in his arms, but it wouldn't do to split the ballroom in two; she allows him to pull her into a waltz, and ignores the smirk of triumph tugging his lips.

**#03 - Wishes**

She wishes that things had been different, that _he _had been different – not because she can't live with what he's done, but because she can.

**#04 - Wonder**

"Aleksander," she murmurs softly, and the faint hint of a smile spreads across her face as she watches his eyes widen.

**#05 - Worry**

Sometimes, they don't see each other for decades; it always seems to bother him more than her.

**#06 - Whimsy**

The Darkling watches her, the way she stretches out her fingers and lets the sunlight dance through the leaves, and remembers what it is to use power as a joy instead of just a tool.

**#07 - Waste/Wasteland**

He makes a wasteland of himself, and tries to drag her down with him.

**#08 - Whiskey and rum**

It would be so easy to get drunk on him, Alina thinks – to consume him, and let him do the same to her.

**#09 - War**

"You started this," she reminds him, merciless as her arm sweeps down in the Cut.

**#10 - Weddings**

Occasionally he takes her name, but she returns over and over to Oretsev; a quiet and pointed reminder of what he took from her.

**#11 - Birthday**

They never celebrate – orphans don't have birthdays, and neither do Darklings.

**#12 - Blessing**

It's a thoughtless action, absently kissing him on the forehead one night; he snorts quietly and murmurs, _thank you,_ _Sankta._

**#13 - Bias**

He accuses her of caring too much about the _otkazat'sya_; before she leaves for another ten or twelve years, she quietly reminds him that they are people too.

**#14 - Burning**

The worst part is that every time he visits her, Alina can still feel his touch hours later, long after she's asked him to leave.

**#15 - Breathing**

She sleeps more than he does, and the Darkling takes full advantage of this, watching the way her chest rises and falls for hours at a time as she curls up in his bed.

**#16 - Breaking**

He had thought he could withstand the breaking of her; a knife to the heart is, he supposes, a fitting way to be proven wrong.

**#17 - Belief**

He sneers at the pilgrims, at the multitudes chanting her name, _Sank-ta-Ali-na Sank-ta-Ali-na_ – not because they believe, but because they think their belief makes her theirs; she will only ever be his.

**#18 - Balloon**

He isn't sure how it happens, but they end up on one of those damn airships at some point in their history; she doesn't say a word when his fingers curl tightly into the wood, but her smirk is enough to make him briefly consider pitching her overboard.

**#19 - Balcony**

She tells him to stop sending his shade into her room; he chuckles and asks if she would prefer he stand under her balcony and throw pebbles at her window.

**#20 - Bane**

He tortures himself sometimes, standing at a distance and watching her with the tracker.

**#21 - Quiet**

They never say the words; him, because what he feels for her cannot be encompassed by mere language, and her because it would feel like a betrayal.

**#22 - Quirks**

He puts extra sugar on his porridge in the morning.

**#23 - Question**

He getsthat look on his face sometimes, like he's going to ask her something; Alina says no on reflex before he can even voice it.

**#24 - Quarrel**

Either their fights are silent, cutting things that stretch on for decades of separation, or quick and explosive and involving mass property destruction.

**#25 - Quitting**

He's worked his way under her skin, settling in and making her his home; no matter how hard she tries, she can't claw him out.

**#26 - Jump**

It takes her centuries to take that step, to prove him right and return to him.

**#27 - Jester**

It's the tracker who is the fool, and yet the more Aleksander watches them together, the more he feels that _he_ is the one being turned into a joke.

**#28 - Jousting**

They rarely have just conversations anymore; there are always ulterior motives, each of them seeking to unseat the other.

**#29 - Jewel**

He destroys every green emerald he comes across.

**#30 - Just**

It's distressing, how much his ideas of justice fall into line with hers with their extended contact (she doesn't want to think that some of it might be her coming to see things his way instead).

**#31 - Smirk**

His smirk as always done something awful to her insides, so the day she twists her mouth at him and watches his lips part for a moment is _immensely_ satisfying.

**#32 - Sorrow**

The Darkling doesn't understand pain, doesn't know how to deal with it; the only way he can think of surviving it is by lashing out at her, making her feel the same thing he is forced to every second he is without her.

**#33 - Stupidity**

Calling him a liar is probably the nicest thing she could say about him, and yet there are moments, brief flashes in time, where she thinks she can trust him.

**#34 - Serenade**

"The screams of my enemies is _not_ a fitting present, Aleksander."

**#35 - Sarcasm**

"That's a shame, now I have nowhere to put my rack."

**#36 - Sordid**

She wakes up with a gasp, cheeks flushed red and an ache between her thighs; the Darkling perches on the edge of her bed and smirks at her, like he knows exactly what she was dreaming about.

**#37 - Soliloquy**

Sometimes after a long separation, he catches her talking to herself under her breath; he can't decide if he likes it, or if it's just another sign of how she gets used to being without him.

**#38 - Sojourn**

It's a little galling when he realises that he is almost never the one to leave her.

**#39 - Share**

There are, occasionally, moments; she'll show him something she's found, or tug him outside to watch the sunset.

**#40 - Solitary**

He hadn't realised how very _alone_ he had been until he had her; losing her was unacceptable.

**#41 - Nowhere**

Eventually, she will understand that there is nowhere she can find true peace without him at her side.

**#42 - Neutral**

It seems that the closer she allows herself to get to him, the better she is at remaining separate, until the day comes when he can look at her face and not discern a single thought that she doesn't want him to see.

**#43 - Nuance**

He learns her in other ways – the hitch of her breath, the arch of her back, the harsh sensation of nails clawing into his skin.

**#44 - Near**

She is, he discovers when she allows him that close, a blanket thief.

**#45 - Natural**

They've both done hideous things, created abominations – and yet the thing that sets them both apart at the end is the longevity that nature wrought.

**#46 - Horizon**

_There is no end to our story_, words she had once clung to; she wonders what it makes her that the grips them a little less tightly as the years wear on.

**#47 - Valiant**

He considers it a synonym for stupidity, and she is only ever accused of it when she acts against him.

**#48 - Virtuous**

"For a saint," he murmurs as his fingers dig into her hips, her body moving over him, "you are terrible at virtue."

**#49 - Victory**

Alina doesn't know what winning means when it comes to him anymore; she isn't sure it matters.

**#50 - Defeat**

Eventually, she comes to love him again.


End file.
